CubaMinrex. Sitio del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Cuba

Kill Chavez?

By Ignacio Ramonet
Taken from Latin Press
March 9, 2005

US assistant Secretary of State for Latin America Roger Noriega declared last February 13, on the CNN Spanish channel that the purchase of 100,000 AK-47 assault rifles and 40 helicopters from Russia by the Venezuelan government of Hugo Chavez is "a cause of concern for our partners in the Americas and also for the people of Venezuela."

He added that "Venezuela´s rearmament is very troubling." In January, new Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, had already accused Hugo Chavez of having "a destabilizing effect on Latin America." And President Bush himself, in December 2004, insisted that those arms purchases "should be a cause of concern for Venezuelans."

Venezuela, one of the US´s major oil suppliers, has denied that it is carrying out an arms race and reminded Washington of its refusal to sell spare parts for its F-16 fighter planes, so Caracas is considering buying Migs from Russia and Toucans from Brazil.

But this new verbal attack confirms the US intention of harassing President Chavez. His clear electoral victory in the revocatory referendum of August 15, 2004, has shown that he has the support of the majority of the citizens. Something which was again demonstrated in last October´s regional elections. None of the dirty tricks -not even the April 2002 Washington-backed attempted coup- have been able to stop the social transformation process, within a framework of democracy and freedom, which Hugo Chavez is fostering. And his personal success in the World Social Forum of Porto Alegre (last February), where more than fifteen thousand enthusiastic youths acclaimed his speech, have turned him into the leading figure of the entire Latin American left.

This is reason enough for Washington Hawks to put even greater pressure on him. Venezuela still hasn´t been placed among the "six bastions of world tyranny" but one can see that it already heads the waiting list.

And, although they still don´t dare use the now common argument of having "weapons of mass destruction" against Caracas, we can already see how they´re trying to turn -by way of aggressive media propaganda- a number of small arms into "a danger for the security of the hemisphere".

We must fear that the next stage could be that of State crime, the assassination of Hugo Chavez. Venezuelan vice-president, Jose Vicente Rangel, has shown photographs which prove the existence in Homestead, Florida (USA), of a training camp for paramilitary troops -who have no problems with US authorities- destined to act in Venezuela. Some of these terrorists are already operating on Venezuelan territory. Proof: on May 2nd last year, a group of 91 Colombian paramilitary elements, linked to the CIA and whose objective was to kill Chavez, were arrested outside of Caracas. The head of the group, Jose Ernesto Ayala Amado, "Commander Lucas", admitted -according to his own confession- that his mission was to "cut Chavez´s head off."

This way of assassinating a political figure is encouraged within the ranks of the opposition. On July 25th, 2004, in the middle of the revocatory referendum debate, former president Carlos Andres Perez, in an interview published the Caracas daily El Nacional, did not hesitate in confessing: "I´m working to take Chavez out (of power).Violence will allow us to overthrow him. Chavez must die like a dog."

Another opposition leader, Orlando Urdaneta, on October 25, 2004, ordered his followers -live on Miami´s Channel 22- to take action: "The only way out for Venezuela is to eliminate Chavez: one person with a rifle and a telescopic sight –that´s it."

The recent assassination of District Attorney Danilo Anderson makes it clear that it is not just a matter of words. And the fact that Hawks of the stature of George W. Bush, Condoleezza Rice or Roger Noriega now renew their threats is an undeniable signal that the project to kill Chavez is in process. It´s time to denounce it so as to discourage them from carrying it out. If not, rivers of blood will again run through the open veins of Latin America.

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